I played once in a Deadlands game as a guest PC for the session. The party was exploring an underground facility not unlike "Black Mesa". My character was found in a stasis pod and revived because hey, strength in numbers and all that.

However, the party gunslinger hated sciency eggheads, so I pretended to just be a lowly janitor caught in the pod when an accident hit the facility (letting a bunch of killer magical creatures loose).

It was fun pretending to be a guy of mostly average intelligence, but my crowning moment of awesome was when we had to get past a large group of what we called "Chicken walkers" - Large featherless birds with stingers and teeth along their beaks.
Using physics, I managed to drive an electric car through the crowd and clear them away so that we could proceed.

I proudly wore my I.D. badge after that. The gunslinger grudgingly accepted me, on the terms that I keep killing things with science. XD

Raxon, you are an evil, evil man. What's next, are you going to propose we perform a fun little play you found called The King in Yellow?

As for things being more than they appear, that's half the fun of my campaigns. Admittedly, much of it is retconned in after the fact, though the players don't need to know that. Like the gnome barbarian Nounverb Thingdoer (Gnome of Action!). I kind of forgot about him between sessions, so when the players asked where he was, I said something about him wandering off when he heard how no one had come in or out of the dwarf fortress for a week.
Well, shortly thereafter, I decided Nounverb was actually a lackey of the aasmiar antipaladin (the party doesn't know about the "anti" part) whose quest the party has been neglecting in favor of stretching their legs until the city forgets about their part in that minor holy war that started when one guy thought it would be funny to use prestidigitation to turn the temple of Immacula (Read: Goddess Rarity) baby-poop green. It hasn't come up yet, but I do look forward to their reactions when it does.
Oh, did I mention the dwarf fortress is named Koganusan?

Now, I had a group of friends, and we usually could never decide on what to play. Well, once we found DnD, we'd played a single game of it at a table. That didn't work out as well as hoped. Sooo.... we moved it to the backyard and started acting out our roles (which, before I continue, I have to say was another reason why this group wasn't that good at DnD). I was a sneak-thief, our 'mage' was actually a Super Saiyan trapped in our time, along with a cybernetic berserker (who was basically the terminator, only not using guns). We had another guy with us in our group, but at some point, he'd dropped out of the group due to family reasons. As in, we didn't see him AT ALL for almost a year. One day, when we're all getting together to play again, the cybernetic berserker asked if he could bring in a friend who was interested. His friend was dressed in a long, trailing robe and a "Mask of Narakvada" (it was a Darth Vader mask), and we let him start at the same level as us with a pretty good skill set. Turns out, it was actually our old friend, the magic-knight come back from the grave (since we'd had him buried in a volcanic rock slide)! He'd only just got back in town, and wanted to rejoin, but since he'd been gone for so long... It was a great moment, both in-game and out.

This was kind of a skirmish of the gods backdrop that was occuring. The usual, good vs evil deal.

The kicker was that we were godly polymorphed into the forms of the anti-group that had been plaguing us for the whole campaign, and met their makers. (at the parties hand/claw of course) We were supposed to infiltrate to a crystal gem housing a rather strong focus. Each of us had a special use as well of the simple shatter spell.

The party, in all forgoing of what would be normal comedic irony, continue on through a posh ball, dungeon, and for those familiar with some shadowrun lingo, ghosting the whole encounter as lawful evil to chaotic evil as good folks. The dm, actually had to throw in his pc to cause trouble because we actually completely surprised him in this regard. This was a net game we were running over openrpg too. The fact he expected to botch this so bad was amazing to have him have to pick up his jaw off the floor metaphorically.

Ah, a chance where I can tell a story! I normally don't have any good ones, being a relatively new player and DM. But at one point, I was DMing for my group and they had to escape this science lab that I had trapped them in. They made a deal with the guy who ran the place to clean out the basement of all kinds of dangerous failed experiments. They went down there and turned on an AI that he begged and pleaded with them not to turn on. I talked very sophisticatedly and coldly. They had been making Portal references a lot so I did my best to make her sound like GLaDoS. (Not sure if I got that quite right...) Anyways, they tried a paradox and I didn't allow it to work. One of the players got insanely outraged and I was forced to take him aside and explain what was going on. Ordinarily I would have just told him to shut up and play the game, but in this game, he's normally the DM and since I'm so inexperienced, he was helping me out with DMing that game. So, I let him in on the secret. AMI (Artifical Master Intelligence) was actually the brain of a seven year old girl who had died. The guy that used to run the science lab had been her father. The guy who ran it at that point was Ami's older brother who she didn't get along with. They eventually figured this out by hiding weapons from her, triggering a childlike temper tantrum that she tried to hurriedly brush off. They'd had a baby bunny with them that they'd befriended and they offered it to her as a peace offering. Eventually she caved and helped them get out of the basement. They tried to take her with them, but the guy who usually DMed wouldn't allow it, even though she wouldn't actually be of any help.It was honestly a very fun experience in which I got to trick my players.

I have an NPC from one of my campaigns, an orc fighter/rogue who leads a band of orcs protecting the countryside from bandits.

Of course, it wasn't always that way. He was originally just a book-standard orc who was holed up in a cave, competing with kobolds for resources under the leadership of another orc. The party met this orc out scouting, where, amongst other things, he proudly proclaimed "me am the smartest orc, leader is dumb!" in broken common, since the party didn't speak orcish.

Our Ranger, being a smart fellow, figured he could use this orc, and convinced him to challenge the leader of the orcs to single combat for leadership, whereupon they'd all attack the kobolds together.

The plan unfolded perfectly, the orc killed his chieftain and took control of the band, and together with the PCs ousted the kobolds. The Ranger then invited the orc to join his organization, which had a rather loose recruitment policy. Membership had benefits, but in return the orc would have to give up raiding and instead help protect the countryside. Owing much to the Ranger, the orc accepted.

Fast forward an in-game year, the orc is revealed to actually have a 16 intelligence, and has brought a dozen orcish tribes under his banner, and together they roam the countryside killing bandits and monsters and receiving food, booze and gold from all the grateful farmers/merchants/travelers. The only reason he sounded dumb in the beginning was that he hadn't had anything more than a basic rundown of the common language, now that he's been educated, he's quite eloquent and fluent in goblin and giant as well as common and orcish.

That was the most horrible 11 minutes of my life.
And for things that wasn't as it seemed...
We were nearing the end of our campaign, where my friend had retrieved the all-powerful sword of justice, and was ready to confront the end-boss. We were pumped and ready to kick ass, when my friend tripped, fell, and had his tallywacker cut off by the falling sword, inflicting him mortal injury. The said blade promptly fell into an abyss, never to be seen again.
We flipped out and went for the DM.

Things not what they seem...that's like, every campaign I've ever run.

I remember one time that the adventuring party wound up owing a life debt to an incredibly powerful arch fiend, compelled to do his bidding. They were convinced that this would lead to them going down a quest path to become completely evil.

The arch fiend kept sending them around to gather artifacts or off certain people, and because of the geis they had to fulfill his directives. Now, I did give them options. When they were sent to 'deal with' someone, they had the option of kill them or destroy their resources, or drag them kicking and screaming back to the arch fiend. (Admittedly, more often than not they chose kill, because, hey, more xp.)

Anyway, once they'd gathered the last artifact, the fiend sent them after a powerful cleric of the god the group's paladin was dedicated to. The directive was to bring her back so he could complete his ritual. They were really not happy about this, but the geis still compelled them.

They kidnapped the cleric, dragging her back to the arch fiend. She was fighting every step of the way, and actually spit in the paladin's face when he tried to explain. Then they finally got her to the arch fiend. The paladin was convinced he was about to become a fallen paladin, and everyone else was certain they were going to lose their good alignment and become the world's most wanted.

Then the cleric, who was also a High Priestess, caught sight of the arch fiend.

Cleric: What, this again?
Fiend: I don't control the heavens.
Cleric: Tsk. Fine!

Me as DM: The cleric shakes off the PCs and marches into the center of the circle. The energy of the artifacts focuses on her and becomes a beam of pure destructive energy shooting into the heavens. Way out in space, an asteroid the size of Australia that was on a direct collision course with the world is vaporized on impact.

Tatsurou, I love the story, and not just because it gives me a campaign idea. The trick would be finding players who'd buy into the idea, even if it gives them a lot of flexibility. Best of all, no magical compulsions are required.

Here's the idea: Could a group be tricked into assisting a demon lord in its (necessarily) subtle pursuit of redemption, or would it eventually give up on the goal, frustrated by endless mistrust and double crossing by a group that thought it was doing the right thing?

I had a character like that once, who in a Star Wars game spoke slightly broken Basic. Still quite capable of communication, just noticeably bad at it. The Solider of the group however pointed out just because she was not very good at speaking, did not give away her intelligence. When she ended up hacking a few doors for them while their main Tech Specialist was distracted or busy, and turn out to have 16 Int in general.. the group took it quite in stride. Turns out she was able to speak a few other languages more fluently too. (It helped that the whole party was rather intelligent with their characters, and having one just be language-deficient was merely a nice touch of flavor. It was also neat the /Solider/ was the one to point out she's potentially smarter then she sounds.)

Well, one time me and my friends were playing a new campaign and it was a new DM. It was my first time playing as well so I got really excited, until our Ninja slipped my Wu Jen who could not drink alcohol or loss all of his powers, whiskey. Then we attacked a wizards tower. So, while I cannot cast spells, everyone else starts slaying monsters and leveling up while I just sit in the back, getting nothing. But eventually I noticed they were not looting the bodies, so I passed the DM a note that said I was looting them as they left. So I got some rings and a note saying to put on the rings and punch them together if you needed a weapon. So I did it and got four floating greatswords. Needless to say, our ninja did not last much longer.

I have something planned for 'not what it looks like', it's actually an experiment in depth of recursion. "Just how far can I take this before they just kill everything?"

Level One: The group of adventurers on their way to a city meets a column of troops, all dressed in bright green and gold, the colors of the nearby druid circle and general do-gooders. They're all completely geared for war.

Level Two: The group is actually a massive horde of Shadows and assorted undead led by an Epic-level lich necromancer, and all of them are under the effects of a Mass Alter Self amulet worn by the lich.

For the rest of it it's important to note that a giant war is going on.

Level Three: They actually are working for the good of the faction that owns the land and druid circle, though the druids and faction don't know about the Alter Self or the undead status.

Level Four: They're hunting a doppelganger inside the faction with the intent to capture it alive, brainwash it, and then kill everyone in the faction once they have what they want.

All these reveals are spaced about four meetings with that lich apart. In honor of how I got the idea for all this, the lich's voice sounds like Geoffrey Rush with the vocabulary of Jack Sparrow. I still cackle when I write for this guy.

One of the best moments that my players misunderestimated an opponent was the apprentice transmuter they attacked in a Mage Guild fortress.

The players thought he was a high-ranking wizard pretending to be an apprentice so the party attacked him. The fight went badly for the poor transmuter and he decided to jump out the window, from 7 floors up.

The players realized this guy wasn't high-ranking, but just a moron with an INT score. So they grabbed him and threw him out an 8th floor window.

The transmuter polymorphed himself into a hawk and flew away in mid fall.

Actually, my parties often run into the opposite problem; the'll seek council from a well-known sage or famed leader, and what he says sounds so reasonable...

...until they're out in the field, actually trying to figure out how to harvest gas spoor "eyestalks" without the things blowing up (hint, you can't (heh, that was a good one)), and they realize that just because so-and-so was a minor noble from a wealthy family AND had a vaguely upper-crust English voice, doesn't mean he is in any way shape or form a competent man.

Ah yes... I actually did that to my fellow players once.
My introduction to the party consisted of my minotaur, Bort, slaughtering a bunch of goblins - the goblins the rest of the party was sent to get rid of.
"Hey! That's great! umm.. you want job? We pay you, you kill more goblins?"
"Hmm? Food too?"
"Uh.. yeah! We can afford that."
"Excellent. let us discuss terms of employment."
"Wait.. what?"
So yeah.. never underestimate a minotaur with an 11 Intelligence. Especially as he wound up being the primary tactician for the party.

Mind, most of the plans consisted of 'the mintoaur barbarian charges in and kills stuff while you guys provide covering fire', but dammit, they worked!

For a while I was in a group where my Minotaur Battle Sorcerer was the primary tactician.

...his int was 2. He needed to wear a headband of intellect to talk. But with a 20 charisma, he was *really convincing* when telling the party over and over again that the best plan was 'scream and leap'.

Well, that's what most of Bort's plans were, too... except that when you have an Axe of Sundering, it is possible to come crashing through solid stone walls like the world's scariest pitcher of kool-aid.

Many moons ago, man with no face talked about Five Fathers Adventuring Party and encounter with bandits. For some, this still rings true. Others might want to look here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jCj1M9cEoV_YZX_ePd1NZtj0lTIw_mZEG6KivYzI0NU/edit?usp=sharing (part 7)
For this is a continuation of that story...

So the party had taken out the bandit lord and his guards. Up next was the school where the majority of the bandit gang was still hold up. Said bandit gang, being bandits for a quite a while now, had turned the school into a make-shift stronghold so the party was, in a way, storming the castle.

Now the school wasn't that big, just a two story building build around a central square where the children could play between classes or so. As such, sound wasn't that much obstructed and a lot of the top floor, where the children were held hostage, could be heard on the ground floor, where the party was currently making short work of all the bandits that stood in their way.

Let me tell you: nothing motivates parents quite like hearing their child screaming in fear. I thought that the group was going a bit slow (gaming time was nearing its end) and wanted to wrap things up. So at one point, the group hears Sarah and the other children scream.

It was dead silent for about two seconds around the table. Then the group goes into 'overprotective "Not my daughter, you bitch" parents' mode and start taking down everything and everyone in sight. Hard. You know how a lot of players adopt the mantra "Don't waste your dailies" early on? Yeah...

I think it could be called a small miracle that the building was still left standing after the party got to the classroom door. Behind it, they could hear two voices talking loudly, the children and footsteps. They didn't even bother checking for traps or the like. They bust down the door and storm in with the d&d fantasy equivalent of guns blazing only to see...

All the children huddled together while to the right, a guy was holding a sword above his head and next to him, a girl whose hands were lit with magical fire. Cue the party nearly dogpiling said last two remaining bandits. Needless to say, the two were overpowered in record time. The group is about to deal the coup de graçe when a dozen or so small hands grab hold of their legs and start pulling.
"Leave them alone!"
"Don't hurt them!"
"We want to hear the rest of the story!"

The party turns around to see a group of children standing up for two bandits, who were lying half conscious on the floor by now, with Sarah awkwardly smiling "I think there's some explaining to do."

Turns out that the two bandits were brother and sister, age 18 and 16, who had left their home. The sister was gifted with magic, fire in particular, which had caused her, and by extension her brother, to be ostracized from their farming community/village so they decided to venture out on their own to lift the burden of their parents and to make fortune. But through various missteps and bumps in the road, they had fallen in with the aforementioned bandit gang. With little other options, they decided to stay until they had scraped together enough money for the sister to find a mentor and the brother to make a decent living. A rather slow endeavor, seeing that they were considerate enough to send 50% of their cut home to their parents.

Being the youngest out of the gang without much experience, the bandit lord had assigned them the job of keeping an eye on the children/hostages. Of course, the two had no idea how to be intimidating to a bunch of children and so, in a final effort to keep the children quiet and prevent them from screaming/crying/running about/making life difficult, resorted to putting up a live theater show for the kids.

The party had busted in right at the climax of the (fairy)tale where the valiant hero (the brother) was going to fight the evil witch (the sister) to save the princess (one of the children) Which was the reason why the children had screamed earlier: the witch kidnapping the princess.

After everything was said and done and apologies were exchanged, the brother and sister were taken into custody along with the other bandits and hauled off to prison. However, the group put in a good word for them (did I mention yet that they were suckers for a good sob story?)and they were released on probation under various conditions: swear off crime, cut all ties with the bandits, find a steady job and generally keep out of trouble. Seeing as the group had vouched for them, they were appointed their 'parole officers' and were to keep an eye on them.

The brother now works as the apprentice butcher/chef at the local inn while the sister serves as a barmaid. Once a week, they check in with the party, the sister to study under Tim and the brother to train with Jim. Occasionally, they provide a helping hand when and where it's needed in the town, particularly regarding the children who have grown fond of them . Even further down the line, after the campaign was over, they became the first (hired) teachers at Jim and Tim's magic/melee school. All in all a happy end ^^

I just finished reading that entire G-doc. (And this part, too.) I am overwhelmed by awesomeness, and couldn't say much of anything even if I wanted to. (I want to, but freaking hell there's either too much to talk about or too much urge to just rant and rave in appreciation.)

I used to read stuff from the library and bookstore near-constantly, but now I just read stories on the internet because, if you know where to look (and get lucky) some of the best fiction is free and in abundance. Your stories are right up there at the top in freaking epic awesomeness. Taken as a whole, of course. Each individual anecdote is /merely/ epic radical 9, but together it's off the (normal) scale. (See what I said about ranting and raving?)

What they said. I just read through it too, and, to be perfectly honest, even knowing about the whole 'Sarah is a Godchild' from what you said about the retcon, I was crying my yes out when she turned into light. And I nearly had a heart attack from adorable sweetness at that last line of "Operation Unicorn". I gotta say, I would LOVE to read a novelization of the entire story of the Five Fathers from the day their party was formed (complete with backstory flashbacks), through adopting Sarah, all the way through to the end of the campaign. Seriously, that would be something I'd pay money for.

voices, something i wish more people in my group did. Heh being in an underground area reminds me of a funny story.

i used to have a guy in our group who rarely showed up, he almost never let us now ahead of time, so i usually ended up playing his rouge just so we had a striker. yes it was 4E i hate it so much

we were going through an underground cave system and we found an item our DM made up called an earthquake gem. what it did was once broken would cause a small isolated earthquake.earlier the tunnel caved in and we had to either dig our way through or wait for a monster to do it for us. we got bored and i have the rouge try to move rocks while my wizard does prep stuff.

we remember that we have the earthquake and threw it at the rubble blocking the pathway, forgetting that the rouge is there naturally. (nobody liked the way the guy played or the character at all so we didn't ask to redo it) and we ended up dropping him to 0 Hp.

I had an experience with not quite misinterpreted voice,but character. Mine, to be precise. I had joined a campaign, a few sessions in. I have a set character I use in pretty much every game: Human Fighter, but the thing about him is that rather than put the best rolls I got into Str and Con, I put them into Int and Dex. That, coupled with the fact I speced him with light armour, and a short sword,led the rest of the party to assume I was a rogue. That was, up until we actually got into a battle, and my character was taking all the hits, dodging a good few, and any that hit did next to nothing to the pool of health, since I had rolled pretty good all round for stats. Thus, the party inquired as to how exactly my "rogue" was taking so many hits, so I informed them in character by saying "that was less challenging than fighter school", and thus the party realized I was in fact a fighter.

In my current campaign a Ravenloft homebrew (I love me some bloodsuckers!) I had my players rescue a bard that was being entombed by a lich in what would become their stronghold.

I put the lich there as a stopping point so they wouldn't set up shop right away but they charged in, rolled well, and imprisoned the lich once again though not outright slaying it.

This very appreciative bard spoke in the third person and was very prideful. None of these folks watch MLP so when I introduced her as THE Great and Powerful Trixie they thought nothing of the bloisterous bard and took her with them to town. She hung on the thief, who had a notorius will save and they spent the night together.

Unknown to them however, Trixie was in fact a Powerful Vampiric Lieutenant to Count Strahd sent to infiltrate the party as they made their way towards his domain. The thieve ended up dominated and fed the count all kinds of details about the group, their movements and allies.

The best part is, they never caught on, even up to where they are now some 20 sessions later. Trixie stays in the inn that they always return to when not out in the woods or in another town and only performs at night when the entertainment happens anyway. I've got this lovely little sleeper cell in their midst and it's a credit to my thief player that he's kept this secret in and out of character for almost a year now.

In an old campaign I was once in, we met an NPC who was meant originally to be nothing more than a librarian we'd encounter once then forget about her. That is, until our wizard did something stupid and she was revealed to be a level 16 cleric. Our party named her ginger after the description our dm gave us (which he never corrected mind you)
So the party ends up using her as our go to NPC. I was the parties cleric and whenever I couldn't do something we asked ginger, who was real amazing. All was well, until one day,..
You see our dm had his own pantheon, very in depth mind you, and one of the first things he told us when we started his campaign was "Don't EVAR make any maps, cartography is banned" well ok then, we thought. But as the cleric he told me a little about the other gods in his pantheon, one of which was the god of cartography. Do you see where this is going?
So it turns out Ginger was practicing the dark art of cartography the entire time which during the process of a final boss level nearly shook all of our alignments and nearly made me lose cleric abilities because we were forced to help her do the forbidden act. Was a very stressful time in and out of character

I'm currently running a My Little Pony: Roleplaying is Magic game for a group of friends (one of whom is a powergaming zebra explosives expert with a penchant for randomly setting off fireworks and also the element of laughter...) and so far I count four bait&switch or things not being what they should be that they have to come across.

I know you're reading this, too. I know you read this comic, so that's why I can't give more details!

See, all these stories remind me of my very first character. It just after I had started playing (Pathfinder mind you) and the DM was running an adventure path. I had happened to join in part way through the module and the party was in the basement of a baddie infested castle. The DM decided the best way to introduce my character was to throw him in a jail cell with an ogre guard. Enter Zentak Alleyrunner, Kobold Gunslinger who had an Int of 12, allowing him to speak common. However I spoke it in the most broken way I could, speaking the third person sometimes, using me instead of I, and using an unnecessary amount of s' and es'. His introduction to the party was him ranting at the ogre from behind his bars, telling the ogre to give him back his gun so he could shoot it in it's dumb face. The party is, of course, listening on the other side of the door because they're super paranoid. So I had Zentak calm down and try and convince the ogre to come closer so we could talk. Ogre's have awful sense motive, so he did. I then proceeded to try and stab him in the face with a hidden dagger but whiffed the attack roll, so I just wound up waving the dagger in the ogre's face while he laughed at me. Then, when the party burst through the door, I tried to throw the dagger at the Ogre... but missed again. Suffice to say that the party fricken loved Zentak. And the day that the Sorcerer learned Draconic? Priceless. In Draconic, Zentak had impeccable speech and the sorcerer was flabbergasted IC. I miss that little kobold, sadly he died two modules later.

Aha! My first chance to tell a story. I've never played DnD, though I watched a game and written up a character for another game that has yet to start due to no one having time, so this story comes from the White Wolf world, Vampire specifically. My character, an aristocratic-seeming pretty girl that wears a Renaissance dress and speaks with an English accent, swears up and down she belongs to clan Daeva (the pretty socialites), and her sire (the one that turned her into a vampire) is off performing Prince Charming-level deads of heroism. In reality (which, given her psyche, she doesn't actually remember), she belongs to clan Gangrel (animal-like, often prone to violence), and her sire is locked up in her basement after she staked him for cheating on her. Now, at one point I was investigating a group of NPCs that we suspected were trying to hunt down and kill all vampires in the city, so I had assembled my team of bruisers at the ready while I went in to socialize some info. Turns out the group was run by Seven, the "we kill all vampires and then ourselves" vampires, and I didn't know the ultra-secret password. I got my arm grabbed while everyone else was still outside, so I twisted, popped claws (which Daeva can't typically do), and embedded them in his chest. My first "hero" breaks the door down with a grappled baddie and I pull my claws out and start screaming like a proper damsel in distress. Only... you don't get any defense while in grapple, and even with the others he got to the point where he'd be dead the turn before he could finish off the guy he was grappling with. To summarize, I ended up dashing past him, popping claws again, and taking out my opponent in two swipes (I pulled insanely well), causing everyone else to run away. When exchanging memorable stories at the end of the game to determine who should get extra XP for excelent roleplaying, my story was told and jaws dropped. As we were leaving, another player commented how much it scared him to think that my social character was also a hit-it. If only they knew... Mwahahaha!